Level 2 Retakers - June 2009

The guys that retook Level 2, what did you think of the exam/curriculum this time round, as opposed to the last time you took it?

I found last year’s exam a breeze compared to this year. I would have gotten >70 in all sections of last year’s exam. This year…different story and I just hope I had enough in there to get over that MPS

ditto

Last year I thought the writers and layout of FSA were brutal (text references to some financial statement 11 pages ago, and complete econo/accountant-speak…an excruciating learn) until I dug into this year’s new writer/layout and it was WORSE! I’m so glad I still had my FSA notes from last year. This years exam had a lot more huggyfeely and less equation application. Will ethics ever be straightforward? CFAI will never let you know the actual answer until you commit an offence related to some question you bandied about here on AF, then you’ll find out the answer to that ethics question as you are censored or have your charter yanked. Last year had a real estate vignette and a NPV/IRR vignette - too bad not this year. I found the morning tougher than the afternoon (unless I went for all the sucker plays).

I was expecting this year to be a little more tougher because they switched from four answers to three. If the exam was a little tougher, I didn’t notice the difference. Last year I wasn’t fully prepared - I took Feb and Mar off to do MBA classes. By the time I got into it in April, I was WAY behind. I was in band 7 even though I thought I might’ve passed (long story why I thought I did). As I said in an earlier post, I think this year more people are questioning how they did vs. last year. Since the regulars on AF have performed better than the entire CFA population from what I’ve seen so far, it makes me feel a bit better about my performance.

sadly i think i did better on last year’s exam vs this year’s. now, whether the MPS is the same or different, we’ll see. last year’s definitely hit my subject areas that I liked better- i just hadn’t studied enough. this year i studied a lot but a lot of disaster areas for me showed up (ss7, i’m looking in your direction and econ that was NOT what i knew). we’ll see. i have a weird feeling i might be on this level again. which stinks, but i’ve kind of come to terms with it and i’d deal.

I am really worried now, because I knew I didn’t study enough, but I thought the test was reasonable. Hearing everyone mention how hard it was has me worried that I totally thought of the questions the wrong way. Anyhoo, I will be on this level again with you bannisja. However, next year I will only register after I have put a couple months of studying in, b/c if I knew the beginning of this year would have so many personal life interruptions, I wouldn’t have signed up.

i think this year was easier than last year’s but it was primarily because of the fact that there were only 3 choices versus 4. i also found i had more time to complete the sets this year versus last. i agree though that it’s totally going to come down to the mps.

Who cares…? They are going to curve it anyways…

johnnyblazini Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Who cares…? They are going to curve it anyways… Who knows… CFAI might throw yet another curveball at us =(

I expect to see a much lower pass rate than last year.

bannisja Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > sadly i think i did better on last year’s exam vs > this year’s. now, whether the MPS is the same or > different, we’ll see. last year’s definitely hit > my subject areas that I liked better- i just > hadn’t studied enough. this year i studied a lot > but a lot of disaster areas for me showed up (ss7, > i’m looking in your direction and econ that was > NOT what i knew). we’ll see. i have a weird > feeling i might be on this level again. which > stinks, but i’ve kind of come to terms with it and > i’d deal. Banni, you felt really confident before…are you sure its just not this forum, it has a habit of highlighting questions you may have got wrong rather than focus on all the ones you got right.

we’ll see. i think i realistically scored maybe a 65% on this test. ethics were solid though (i think). we’ll see. i made some really dumb mistakes. i am confident that if they gave another test today and it were a different looking test, i probably would crush it. this one and i just didn’t get along swimmingly and i fell for some easy traps. that’s L2 though. hopefully it didn’t get along with a lot of people. at this point, who cares- not in my hands. we’ll see in august. CFAI, have mercy on me.

alright, the objective of this thread was to judge how much of the material was NEW this time round and how much of a difference that made to the retakers and what they made of it … :slight_smile: screw the results man, you did what you could, and it’s out of your hands now. just enjoy your summer.

new- the private equity reading and the taxes in PM reading were the 2 big new sections. new and tested- accruals ratio stuff- that was new and tested. econ- some of that stuff was newer. i would think maybe 15-20% of the test was testing newer stuff to this year if you count the PE set, accruals, econ, and maybe a q or 2 here and there. enough to want to get new books year after year. enough to want to pass now because they seem to add and not subtract new material!

rule of 70 was new. I always thought of it as rule of 72.

1st. I believe pass rates will be among average this year (40+) 2nd. 2009 exam was as hard as last years, however trickier Scored band 10 last year. I’m expecting something similar for this season, just hope my memory don’t betrays me (calculated my score on spreadsheet), and guesses (blind but mostly and more importantly educated guesses) come to my rescue…

Greetings to All, I have a feeling, that this year’s exam was not difficult, so people who overprepared might have been caught off guard… You expected somthing which did not come hence you could shoot all the targets you planned to shoot and that is my friends makes a difference in most cases. Anyhoo, I hope all of us who deserves to pass did so and we will see each other in CFA Level III forum just in about 2 months… if Not be then as French say “S’el avi” Regards Mikhail

this years exam was trickier … w/ that being said … i was fooled as due to my lack of reading comprehension i will be a band 10 again for 2 years in a row … as i know i have failed … i will comeback in 3 months to post my results … until then i can’t think about this test anymore … i can accept failure … i just hate having to admit that i didn’t do well for the 2nd year in a row … by the slimmest of margins … c’est la vie

MONGOOSENY Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > this years exam was trickier … w/ that being > said … i was fooled as due to my lack of reading > comprehension i will be a band 10 again for 2 > years in a row … as i know i have failed … i > will comeback in 3 months to post my results … > until then i can’t think about this test anymore > … i can accept failure … i just hate having to > admit that i didn’t do well for the 2nd year in a > row … by the slimmest of margins … c’est la > vie ditto. I thought this year’s test was harder, yet I felt more prepared. I fell for atleast 3-4 of the ‘tricks’ (which I actually think were a fair assessment of how well you knew your stuff). It is going to come down to 1 or 2 questions for me.